Volume 3 — THE DESTROYERS OF VERMIN. (continued 2)

“When I’ve been in a mind for travelling I’ve never sold less than ten shillings’ worth of my composition, and I’ve many a time sold five pounds’ worth. Ten shillings’ worth was the least I ever sold. During my younger career, if I’d had a backer, I might, one week with another, have made my clear three pounds a-week, after paying all my expenses and feeding my horse and all.

“I challenge my composition, and sell the art of rat-destroying, against any chemical rat-destroyer in the world, for any sum—I don’t care what it is. Let anybody, either a medical or druggist manufacturer of composition, come and test with rats again me, and they’ll pretty soon find it out. People pay for composition instead of employing the Queen’s rat-ketcher, what kills the warmint and lays down his composition for nothink into the bargain likewise.

“I also destroy black beedles with a composition which I always keep with me again it’s wanted. I often have to destroy the beedles in wine-cellars, which gnaw the paper off the bottles, such as is round the champagne and French wine bottles. I’ve killed lots of beedles too for bakers. I’ve also sterminated some thousands of beedles for linen-drapers and pork-sassage shops. There’s two kinds of beedles, the hard-shell and the soft-shell beedle. The hard-shell one is the worst, and that will gnaw cork, paper, and anythink woollen. The soft-shell’d one will gnaw bread or food, and it also lays its eggs in the food, which is dreadful nasty.

“There’s the house ant too, which there is some thousands of people as never saw—I sterminate them as well. There’s a Mrs. B. at the William the Fourth public-house, Hampstead; she couldn’t lay her child’s clothes down without getting ’em full of ants. They’ve got a sting something in feel like a horse-fly’s, and is more annoying than dangerous. It’s cockroaches that are found in houses. They’re dreadful nasty things, and will bite, and they are equal to the Spanish flies for blistering. I’ve tried all insects on my flesh to see how they bite me. Cockroaches will undermine similar to the ant, and loosen the bricks the same as the cricket. It’s astonishing how so small an insect as them will scrape away such a quantity of mortar as they do—which thing infests grates, floorings, and such-like.

“The beedle is a most ’strordinary thing, which will puzzle most people to sterminate, for they lays sitch a lot of eggs as I would never guarantee to do away with beedles—only to keep them clear; for if you kills the old ones the eggs will rewive, and young ones come out of the wainskitting and sitch-like, and then your employers will say, ‘Why you were paid for sterminating, and yet here they are.’

“One night in August—the night of a very heavy storm, which, maybe, you may remember, sir—I was sent for by a medical gent as lived opposite the Load of Hay, Hampstead, whose two children had been attacked by rats while they was sleeping in their little cots. I traced the blood, which had left lines from their tails, through the openings in the lath and plaster, which I follered to where my ferruts come out of, and they must have come up from the bottom of the house to the attics. The rats gnawed the hands and feet of the little children. The lady heard them crying, and got out of her bed and called to the servant to know what the child was making such a noise for, when they struck a light, and then they see the rats running away to the holes; their little night-gownds was kivered with blood, as if their throats had been cut. I asked the lady to give me one of the night-gownds to keep as a cur’osity, for I considered it a pheenomenon, and she give it to me, but I never was so vexed in all my life as when I was told the next day that a maid had washed it. I went down the next morning and sterminated them rats. I found they was of the specie of rat which we term the blood-rat, which is a dreadful spiteful feller—a snake-headed rat, and infests the dwellings. There may have been some dozens of ’em altogether, but it’s so long ago I a’most forget how many I took in that house. The gent behaved uncommon handsome, and said, ‘Mr. Black, I can never pay you for this;’ and ever arterwards, when I used to pass by that there house, the little dears when they see me used to call out to their mamma, ‘O, here’s Mr. Ratty, ma!’ They were very pretty little fine children—uncommon handsome, to be sure.

“I once went to Mr. Hollins’s, in Edward-street Regent’s-park—a cow-keeper he was—where he was so infested that the cows could not lay down or eat their food, for the rats used to go into the manger, and fight at ’em. Mr. Hollins said to me, ‘Black, what shall I give you to get rid of them rats?’ and I said to him, says I, ‘Well, Mr. Hollins, you’re a poor man, and I leave it to you.’ (He’s got awful rich since then.) I went to work, and I actually took out 300 rats from one hole in the wall, which I had to carry them in my mouth and hands, and under my arms, and in my buzzum and pockets, to take them to the cage. I was bit dreadful by them, and suffered greatly by the bites; but nothink to lay up for, though very painful to the hands. To pervent the rats from getting out of the hole, I had to stop it up by putting my breast again it, and then they was jumping up again me and gnawing at my waistkit. I should think I sterminated 500 from them premises. Ah! I did wonders round there, and everybody was talking of my feats.

“I’ll tell you about another cow-keeper’s, which Mr. Hollins was so gratified with my skill what I had done, that he pays me handsome and generous, and gives me a recommendation to Mrs. Brown’s, of Camden-town, and there I sterminated above 700 rats; and I was a-near being killed, for I was stooping down under the manger, when a cow heerd the rats squeak, and she butts at me and sends me up again the bull. The bull was very savage, and I fainted; but I was picked up and washed, and then I come to.

“Whilst doing that job at Mrs. Brown’s I had to lie down on the ground, and push my naked arm into the hole till I could reach the rats as I’d driven up in the corner, and then pull them out with my hand. I was dreadful bit, for I was obleeged to handle them anyhow; my flesh was cut to ribands and dreadful lacerated.

“There was a man Mrs. Brown had got of the name of John, and he wouldn’t believe about the rats, and half thought I brought ’em with me. So I showed him how to ketch rats.

“You see rats have always got a main run, and from it go the branch runs on each side like on a herring-bone, and at the end of the branch runs is the bolt-holes, for coming in and out at. I instantly stopped up all the bolt-holes and worked the rats down to the end of the main run, then I broke up the branch runs and stopped the rats getting back, and then, when I’d got ’em all together at the end of the main run, I put my arm down and lifted them up. I have had at times to put half my body into a hole and thrust down my arm just like getting rabbits out of their burrers.

“Sometimes I have to go myself into the holes, for the rats make such big ones, there’s plenty of room. There was a Mrs. Perry in Albany-street, that kept an oil and coke shop—she were infested with rats dreadful. Three of her shop-boys had been sent away on suspicion of stealing fat, instead of which it was the rats, for between the walls and the vault I found a hundred and a half of fat stowed away. The rats was very savage, and I should think there was 200 of them. I made a good bit of money by that job, for Mrs. Perry give the fat to me.

“I have had some good finds at times, rat-hunting. I found under one floor in a gent’s house a great quantity of table napkins and silver spoons and forks, which the rats had carried away for the grease on ’em—shoes and boots gnawed to pieces, shifts, aprons, gownds, pieces of silk, and I don’t know what not. Sarvants had been discharged accused of stealing them there things. Of course I had to give them up; but there they was.

“I was once induced to go to a mews in Tavistock-place, near Russell-square, which was reg’lar infested by rats. They had sent to a man before, and he couldn’t do nothink with ’em, but I soon sterminated them. The rats there had worried a pair of beautiful chestnut horses, by gnawing away their hoofs and nearly driving them mad, which I saw myself, and there was all their teeth-marks, for I could scarcely believe it myself till I see it. I found them near a cart-load of common bricks, under the floor, and near the partition of the stable, which, when the men pulled the wood-work down, the coachman, says he, ‘Well, rat-ketcher, if you’d been employed years ago a deal more corn would have gone into the horses.’

“This coachman give me a recommendation to a muffin-maker in Hanway-yard, and I went there and killed the rats. But a most sing’lar thing took place there; my ferret got away and run through into a house in Oxford-street kept by a linen-draper, for the young men come to say that the rat-ketcher’s ferret was in their shop, and had bit one of their lady customers. I worked the ferrut through three times to make sure of this; and each time my little dog told me it was true. You see a well-trained dog will watch and stand and point to the ferrut working under ground just as a pinter does to game; and although he’s above ground, yet he’ll track the ferrut through the runs underneath by the smell. If the ferrut is lost—which I tell by the dog being uneasy—I say to the dog, ‘Hi, lost;’ and then he instantly goes on scent, and smells about in every direction, and I follers him, till he stands exactly over the spot where it may be, and then I have either to rise a stone or lift a board to get him out.

“I’ve ratted for years for Mr. Hodges, of Hodges and Lowman’s, in Regent-street; and he once said to me, that he was infested dreadful with rats at the house, which he took for the children, at Hampstead; so I went there, and witnessed, certainly, the most cur’ous circumstance, which puzzles me to this day. I had to lay on my belly half in the hole and pull out the rats; and, on looking at them, as I brings them up, I am astonished to find that nearly every one of them is blind, and has a speck in the eye. I was never so much astonished in my life, for they was as a wall-eyed dog might be. I supposed it to be from lightning (I couldn’t account for it no other ways), for at that time there was very heavy lightning and floods up there, which maybe you might remember, sir. They was chiefly of the blood-rat specie—small snake-headed rats, with a big, fine tail. They was very savage with me, and I had them run all over me before I ketched them.

“Rats are everywhere about London, both in rich and poor places. I’ve ketched rats in 44 Portland-place, at a clergyman’s house there. There was 200 and odd. They had underminded the oven so, that they could neither bile nor bake; they had under-pinioned the stables, and let every stone down throughout the premises, pretty well. I had to crawl under a big leaden cistern which the rats had under-pinioned, and I expected it would come down upon me every minute. I had one little ferrut kill thirty-two rats under one stone, and I lifted the dead ones up in the presence of the cook and the butler. He didn’t behave well to me—the gent didn’t—for I had to go to my lawyer’s afore I could get paid, and after the use of my skill; and I had to tell the lawyer I’d pawn my bed to stick to him and get my earnings; but, after all, I had to take one-third less than my bill. This, thinks I, isn’t the right thing for Portland-place.

“Rats will eat each other like rabbits, which I’ve watched them, and seen them turn the dead one’s skins out like pusses, and eat the flesh off beautiful clean. I’ve got cages of iron-wire, which I made myself, which will hold 1000 rats at a time, and I’ve had these cages piled up with rats, solid like. No one would ever believe it; to look at a quantity of rats, and see how they will fight and tear one another about,—it’s astonishing, so it is! I never found any rats smothered, by putting them in a cage so full; but if you don’t feed them every day, they’ll fight and eat one another—they will, like cannibals.

“I general contracts with my customers, by the year, or month, or job. There’s some gents I’ve worked for these fifteen years—sitch as Mr. Robson, the coach-builder, Mivart’s Hotel, Shoulbreds’, Mr. Lloyds, the large tobacconist, the Commercial Life Assurance, Lord Duncannon’s, and I can’t recollect how many more. My terms is from one guinea to five pounds per annum, according to the premises. Besides this, I have all the rats that I ketch, and they sell for threepence each. But I’ve done my work too well, and wherever I went I’ve cleared the rats right out, and so my customers have fell off. I have got the best testimonials of any man in London, and I could get a hatful more to-morrer. Ask anybody I’ve worked for, and they’ll tell you about Jack Black.

“One night I had two hundred rats in a cage, placed in my sitting-room, and a gent’s dog happened to get at the cage, and undid the door, snuffing about, and let ’em all loose. Directly I come in I knew they was loose by the smell. I had to go on my knees and stomach under the beds and sofas, and all over the house, and before twelve o’clock that night I had got ’em all back again into the cage, and sold them after for a match. I was so fearful they’d get gnawing the children, having sterminated them in a house where children had been gnawed.

“I’ve turned my attention to everything connected with animals. I’ve got the best composition for curing the mange in a horse or a dog, which has reg’lar astonished medical gents. I’ve also been bit by a mad dog—a black retriever dog, that died raving mad in a cellar afterwards. The only thing I did was, I washed the wound with salt and water, and used a turpentine poultice.”

Mrs. Black here interposed, exclaiming,—

“O dear me! the salt and water he’s had to his flesh, it ought to be as hard as iron. I’ve seen him put lumps of salt into his wounds.”

Mr. Black then continued:—

“I never had any uneasiness from that bite of a mad dog; indeed, I never troubled myself about it, or even thought of it.

“I’ve caught some other things besides rats in my time. One night, I saw a little South African cat going along the New-road. I thought it was a cur’ous specie of rat, and chased it, and brought it home with me; but it proved to belong to Mr. Herring’s menagerie in the New-road, so I let him have it back again.

“Another time I met with two racoons, which I found could handle me just as well as I could handle a rat, for they did bite and scratch awful. I put ’em in the cart, and brought them home in a basket. I never found out to whom they belonged. I got them in Ratcliffe-highway, and no doubt some sailors had brought them over, and got drunk, and let ’em loose. I tried them at killing rats, but they weren’t no good at that.

“I’ve learnt a monkey to kill rats, but he wouldn’t do much, and only give them a good shaking when they bit him. After I found the racoons no good, I trained a badger to kill rats, and he was superior to any dog, but very difficult in training to get him to kill, though they’ll kill rabbits fast enough, or any other kind of game, for they’re rare poachers are badgers. I used to call her Polly. She killed in my own pit, for I used to obleege my friends that wouldn’t believe it possible with the sight. She won several matches—the largest was in a hundred match.

“I also sterminate moles for her Majesty, and the Woods and Forests, and I’ve sterminated some hundreds for different farmers in the country. It’s a cur’ous thing, but a mole will kill a rat and eat it afterwards, and two moles will fight wonderful. They’ve got a mouth exactly like a shark, and teeth like saws; ah, a wonderful saw mouth. They’re a very sharp-biting little animal, and very painful. A rat is frightened of one, and don’t like fighting them at all.

“I’ve bred the finest collection of pied rats which has ever been knowed in the world. I had above eleven hundred of them—all wariegated rats, and of a different specie and colour, and all of them in the first instance bred from the Norwegian and the white rat, and afterwards crossed with other specie.

“I have ris some of the largest tailed rats ever seen. I’ve sent them to all parts of the globe, and near every town in England. When I sold ’em off, three hundred of them went to France. I ketched the first white rat I had at Hampstead; and the black ones at Messrs. Hodges and Lowman’s, in Regent-street, and them I bred in. I have ’em fawn and white, black and white, brown and white, red and white, blue-black and white, black-white and red.

“People come from all parts of London to see them rats, and I supplied near all the ‘happy families’ with them. Burke, who had the ‘happy family’ showing about London, has had hundreds from me. They got very tame, and you could do anythink with them. I’ve sold many to ladies for keeping in squirrel cages. Years ago I sold ’em for five and ten shillings a-piece, but towards the end of my breeding them, I let ’em go for two-and-six. At a shop in Leicester-square, where Cantello’s hatching-eggs machine was, I sold a sow and six young ones for ten shillings, which formerly I have had five pounds for, being so docile, like a sow sucking her pigs.”

The Sewerman.

He is a broad-shouldered, strongly-built man, with a stoop in his shoulders, and a rather dull cast of features; from living so much in the “shores” (sewers), his eyes have assumed a peering kind of look, that is quite rat-like in its furtiveness.

He answered our questions with great good humour, but in short monosyllabic terms, peculiar to men who have little communion with their fellows.

The “parlour” in which the man lives was literally swarming with children when we paid him a visit (they were not all “belonging” to him). Nor was it quite pleasant to find that the smell of the tea, which had just been made, was overpowered by the odour of the rats which he keeps in the same room.

The week’s wash was hanging across the apartment, and gave rather a slovenly aspect to the room, not otherwise peculiar for its untidyness; against the wall were pasted some children’s “characters,” which his second son, who is at the coal-shed, has a taste for, and which, as the “shoreman” observed, “is better than sweet-stuff for him, at all events.”

A little terrier was jumping playfully about the room, a much more acceptable companion than the bull-dog whose acquaintance we had been invited to make (in the same court) by the “rat-killer.”

The furniture and appointments of the “parlour” were extremely humble—not to say meagre in their character. After some trouble in getting sufficiently lucid answers, the following was the result:—

“There are not so many rats about as there used to be—not a five-hundredth part so many. I’ve seen long ago twenty or thirty in a row near where the slaughter-houses are, and that like. I ketch them all down the shores. I run after them and pick them up with my hand, and I take my lantern with me.

“I have caught rats these six or seven years. When the money got to be lowered, I took to ketching on them. One time I used to take a dog with me, when I worked down St. John’s-wood way.

“They fetches all prices, does rats; some I get threepence a-piece for, some twopence, some twopence-halfpenny—’cordin’ who has ’em.

“I works on the shores, and our time to leave off is four. I comes home and gets my tea, and if there’s sale for them, why I goes out and ketches a few rats. When I goes out I can ketch a dozen; but, years ago, I could ketch two or three dozen without going so far, and that shows there’s not so many now about.

“I finds some difficulty in ketching on them. If they gets into the drain you can’t get ’em. Where the drains lay low to the shore it’s most difficult, but where the drain is about two feet and a-half from the shore you gets a better chance.

“Three or four dozen I used to ketch, but I haven’t ketched any this last two or three weeks. In this hot weather people don’t like to be in a room where ‘killing’ is going on; but in the winter time a man will have his pint of beer and see a little sport that way. Three or four year ago I did ketch a good many; there was a sale for ’em. I could go and ketch two dozen in three hours, and that sooner than I can do a dozen now. It’s varmint as wants to be destroyed.

“Rats’ll turn round when they finds theirselves beat, and sometimes fly at your hand. Sometimes I’ve got bit—not very badly, though. To tell the truth, I don’t like it. When they grip, they do holt so tight before they’ll let go.

“I’ve been a shoreman these fifteen or sixteen year, ever since this flushing commenced. I was put on by the Commissioners in Hatting Garding; but the Commissioners is all done away with since Government took to it. I’m employed by the parish now. Every parish has to do its own flushing.

“We cleanses away all the soil what’s down below, and keeps the shore as sweet as what we possibly can.

“Before I took to this life I was what they call a navvy; I used to help to make the shores, and before that, I was in the country at farmers’ work.

“Ketching them rats ain’t all profit, ’cause you have to keep ’em and feed ’em. I’ve some here, if I was to get sixpence a-piece for, why it wouldn’t pay me for their feed. I give them barley generally, and bits of bread.

“There’s a many about now ketchin’ who does nothink else, and who goes down in the shores when they have no business there at all. They does well by rats when they’ve good call for ’em. They can go down two or three times a-day, and ketch a dozen and a half a time; but they can’t do much now, there’s no killing going on. They takes ’em to beer-shops, and sells ’em to the landlords, who gets their own price for ’em if there’s a pit.

“Time ago you couldn’t get a rat under sixpence. But the tax on dogs has done away wonderful with rat-killing. London would swarm with rats if they hadn’t been ketched as they has been. I can go along shores and only see one or two now, sometimes see none. Times ago I’ve drove away twenty or thirty afore me. Round Newport-market I’ve seen a hundred together, and now I go round there and perhaps won’t ketch one.

“As for poisonin’ ’em under buildings, that’s wrong; they’re sure to lay there and rot, and then they smells so. No, pisoning a’n’t no good, specially where there’s many on ’em.

“I’ve sold Jack Black a good many. He don’t ketch so many as he gets killed. He’s what they call rat-ketcher to her Majesty.

“When I goes rat ketching, I generally takes a bag with me; a trap is too much to lug about.

“Some parts of the shores I can find my way about better than I can up above. I could get in nigh here and come out at High Park; only the worst of it is, you’re always on the stoop. I never heerd talk of anybody losing theirselves in the shores, but a stranger might.

“There’s some what we calls ‘gully-hunters’ as goes about with a sieve, and near the gratings find perhaps a few ha’pence. Years ago we used to find a little now and then, but we may go about now and not find twopence in a week. I don’t think any shoreman ever finds much. But years ago, in the city, perhaps a robbery might be committed, and then they might be afraid of being found out, and chuck the things down the drains.

“I come from Oxfordshire, about four miles from Henley-’pon-Thames. I haven’t got now quite so many clods to tramp over, nor so many hills to climb.

“I gets two shillings a-dozen if I sells the rats to a dealer, but if I takes ’em to the pit myself I gets three shillings. Rats has come down lately. There’s more pits, and they kills ’em cheaper; they used to kill ’em at six shillings a-dozen.

“I’ve got five children. These here are not all belonging to me. Their mother’s gone out a-nussing, and my wife’s got to mind ’em.

“My oldest son is sixteen. He’s off for a sailor. I had him on me for two years doin’ nothink. He couldn’t get a place, and towards the last he didn’t care about it. He would go to sea; so he went to the Marine School, and now he’s in the East Ingy Sarvice. My second is at a coal-shed. He gets three shillings a-week; but, Lord, what’s that? He eats more than that, let alone clothes, and he wears out such a lot of shoe-leather. There’s a good deal of wear and tear, I can tell yer, in carrying out coals and such-like.”

The Penny Mouse-trap Maker.

This man lived in a small cottage at the back of Bethnal Green-road, and the little railed space in front of the humble dwelling was littered with sundry evidences of the inmate’s ingenuity. Here was a mechanical carriage the crippled father had made to drive himself along, and a large thaumatrope, or disc of painted figures, that seemed to move while revolving rapidly before the eye; and this, I afterwards learnt, the ingenious cripple had made, as a street exhibition, for a poor man, whom he was anxious to put in the way of doing something for himself.

The principal apartment in the little two-roomed house was blocked up with carpenters’ benches, and long planks were resting against the wall, while the walls themselves were partly covered with tools and patterns of the craft pursued; and in one corner there were heaps of the penny mouse-traps and penny money-boxes, that formed the main articles of manufacture.

In a little room adjoining this, and about the size of a hen-house, I found the cripple himself in bed, but still sitting up with a small desk-like bench before him, and engaged in the act of cutting and arranging the wires for the little wooden traps in which he dealt. And as I sat by his bedside he told me the following story:—

“I am,” he said, “a white-wood toy-maker, in a small way; that is, I make a variety of cheap articles,—nothing beyond a penny,—in sawed and planed pine-wood. I manufacture penny and halfpenny money-boxes, penny and halfpenny toy bellows, penny carts, penny garden-rollers, penny and halfpenny dolls’ tables and washhand-stands, chiefly for baby-houses; penny dressers, with drawers, for the same purpose; penny wheelbarrows and bedsteads; penny crossbows; and the mouse-trap that I am about now. I make all the things I have named for warehouses—for what are called the cheap Birmingham and Sheffield houses. I am paid the same price for whatever I make, with the exception of the mouse-trap. For the principal part of the penny articles that I make I get 7s. for twelve dozen, that is 7d. a-dozen; and for the halfpenny articles I get 3s. 6d., at the rate of 3½d. a-dozen. For the penny mouse-traps, however, I am paid only 1l. for thirty-six dozen, and that’s a shilling less than I get for the same quantity of the other shilling articles; whilst for the penny boxes I’m paid only at the rate of a halfpenny each.

“You will please to look at that, sir,” he said, handing me his account-book with one of his employers for the last year; “you will see there that what I am saying is perfectly correct, for there is the price put to every article; and it is but right that you should have proof that what I’m a-telling you is the truth. I took of one master, for penny mouse-traps alone, you perceive, 36l. 10s. from January to December, 1849; but that is not all gain, you’ll understand. Out of that I have to pay above one half for material. I think, altogether, my receipts of the different masters I worked for last year came to about 120l.—I can’t lay my hands on the bills just now.—Yes, it’s about 120l. I know, for our income,—that is, my clear gains is about 1l. to 1l. 5s. every week. So, calculating more than one half what I take to go for the expense for material, that will bring it to just about to what I state. To earn the 25s. a-week, you’ll understand, there are four of us engaged,—myself, my wife, my daughter, and son. My daughter is eighteen, and my son eleven: that is my boy, sir; he’s reading the Family Friend just now. It’s a little work I take in for my girl, for her future benefit. My girl is as fond of reading as I am, and always was. My boy goes to school every evening, and twice on a Sunday. I am willing that they should find as much pleasure from reading as I have in my illness. I found books often lull my pain. Yes, I have, indeed, for many hours. For nine months I couldn’t handle a tool; and my only comfort was the love of my family, and my books. I can’t afford them now, for I have no wish to incur any extraneous expense, while the weight of the labour lies on my family more than it does on myself. Over and over again, when I have been in acute pain with my thigh, a scientific book, or a work on history, or a volume of travels, would carry my thoughts far away, and I should be happy in all my misery—hardly conscious that I had a trouble, a care, or a pang to vex me. I always had love of solid works. For an hour’s light reading, I have often turned to a work of imagination, such as Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Shakspeare’s Plays; but I prefer science to poetry. I think every working man ought to be acquainted with general science. If he is a mechanic—let his station be ever so simple,—he will be sure to find the benefit of it. It gives a man a greater insight into the world and creation, and it makes his labour a pleasure and a pride to him, when he can work with his head as well as his hands. I think I have made, altogether, about one hundred and six gross of mouse-traps for the master whose account I have given you, and as many more for other employers, in the course of the last year. I calculate that I made more than thirty thousand mouse-traps from January to December, 1849. There are three or four other people in London making penny mouse-traps, besides myself. I reckon they may make among them near upon half as many as I do; and that would give about forty-five or fifty thousand penny mouse-traps made in London in the course of the year. I myself brought out the penny mouse-trap in its improved shape, and with the improved lever spring. I have no calculations as to the number of mice in the country, or how soon we should have caught them if we go on at this rate; but I think my traps have to do with that. They are bought more for toys than for use, though they are good for mice as well as children; and though we have so many dozen mouse-traps about the house, I can assure you we are more troubled with mice here than most people. The four of us here can make twenty-four dozen traps in the day, but that is all we can get through comfortable. For eighteen dozen we get about 10s. at the warehouse, and out of that I reckon our clear gains are near upon 4s., or a little less than 1s. a head. Take one with the other, we can earn about a penny an hour; and if it wasn’t for me having been a tailor originally, and applying some of my old tools to the business, we shouldn’t get on so quick as we do. With my shears I can cut twenty-four wires at a time, and with my thimble I thread the wires through the holes in the sides. I make the springs, cut the wires, and put them in the traps. My daughter planes the wood and gauges out the sides and bottom, bores the wire-holes and makes the door as well. My wife nails the frames ready for wiring, and my son fixes the wires in their places when I have entered them; then the wife springs them, after which the daughter puts in the doors and so completes them. I can’t form an idea as to how many penny and halfpenny money-boxes I made last year. I might have made, altogether, eight thousand, or five thousand halfpenny and three thousand penny ones. I was originally brought up to the tailoring business, but my master failed, and my sight kept growing weaker every year; so, as I found a good deal of trouble in getting employment at my own trade, I thought I would take to the bird-cage making—I had been doing a little at it before, as a pastime. I was fond of birds, and fonder still of mechanics, so I was always practising my hands at some craft or other in my over-time. I used to make dissected maps and puzzles, and so, when standing for employment, I managed to get through the slack of the year. I think it is solely due to my taste for mechanics and my love of reading scientific books that I am able to live so comfortably as I do in my affliction. After I took to bird-cage making, I found the employment at it so casual that I could not support my family at it. This led my mind to toy making, for I found that cheap toys were articles of more general sale. Then I got my children and my wife to help me, and we managed to get along somehow, for you see they were learning the business, and I myself was not in much of a condition to teach them, being almost as inexperienced at the trade as they were; and, besides that, we were continually changing the description of toy that we manufactured, so we had no time to perfect ourselves. One day we were all at work at garden-rollers; the next, perhaps, we should be upon little carts; then, may-be, we should have to go to dolls’ tables or wheelbarrows: so that, with the continual changing the description of toy that we manufactured from one thing to another, we had a great difficulty in getting practised in anything. While we were all learning you may imagine that, not being so quick then as we are now, we found a great difficulty in making a living at the penny-toy business: often we had merely dry bread for breakfast, tea, and supper, but we ate it with a light heart, for I knew repining wouldn’t mend it, and I always taught myself and those about me to bear our trials with fortitude. At last I got to work regularly at the mouse-traps, and having less changing we learnt to turn them out of hand quicker, and to make more money at the business: that was about four years ago, and then I was laid up with a strumous abscess in the thigh. This caused necrosis, or decay of the thigh-bone, to take place, and it was necessary that I should be confined to my bed until such time as a new thigh-bone was formed, and the old decayed one had sloughed away. Before I lay up I stood at the bench until I was ready to drop, for I had no one who could plane the boards for me; and what could I do? If I didn’t keep up, I thought we should all starve. The pain was dreadful, and the anxiety of mind I suffered for my wife and children made it a thousand times worse. I couldn’t bear the idea of going to the workhouse, and I kept on my feet until I couldn’t stand no longer. My daughter was only sixteen then, and I saw no means of escape. It was at that time my office to prepare the boards for my family, and without that they could do nothing. Well, sir, I saw utter ruin and starvation before us. The doctor told me it would take four years before a new bone would be formed, and that I must lay up all the while. What was to become of us all in the mean time I could not tell. Then it was that my daughter, seeing the pain I suffered both in body and mind, came to me, and told me not to grieve, for that she would do all the heavy work for me, and plane up the boards and cut out the work as I had done; but I thought it impossible for her to get through such hard work, even for my sake. I knew she could do almost anything that she set her mind to, but I little dreamt that she would be able to compass that. However, with the instinct of her affection—I can’t call it anything else (for she learnt at once what it had taken me months to acquire), she planed and shaped the boards as well as I myself could have done after years of practice. The first board she did was as cleanly done as she can do it now, and when you think of the difficulties she had to overcome, what a mere child she was, and that she had never handled a plane before, how she had the grain of the wood to find out, to learn the right handling of her tools, and a many little niceties of touch that workmen only can understand, it does seem to me as if some superior Power had inspired her to aid me. I have often heard of birds building their nests of the most beautiful structure, without ever having seen one built before, and my daughter’s handiwork seemed to me exactly like that. It was a thing not learnt by practice, but done in an instant, without teaching or experience of any kind. She is the best creature I ever knew or ever heard tell of on earth—at least, so she has been to me all her life; aye, without a single exception. If it hadn’t been for her devotion I must have gone to the workhouse, and perhaps never been able to have got away from it, and had my children brought up as paupers. Where she got the strength to do it is as much a mystery to me as how she did it. Though she was but a mere child, so to speak, she did the work of a grown man, and I assure you the labour of working at the bench all day is heavy, even for the strongest workman, and my girl is not over-strong now; indeed she was always delicate from a baby: nevertheless she went through the labour, and would stand to the bench the whole of the day, and with such cheerful good humour too that I cannot but see the hand of the Almighty in it all. I never knew her to complain of fatigue, or ever go to her work without a smile on her face. Her only anxiety was to get done, and to afford me every comfort in my affliction that she could. For three years and two months now have I been confined to my bed, and for two years and a half of that time I have not left it, even to breathe the fresh open air. Almost all that period I have been suffering intense and continued pain from the formation of abscesses in my thigh previous to the sloughing away of the decayed bones. I have taken out of the sores at least two hundred pieces, some as small as needles and some not less than an inch and a half long, which required to be pulled out with tweezers from the wound. Often, when I was getting a bit better and able to go about in the cart you see there outside, with the gravel in it—(I made that on this bed here, so as to be able to move about on it; the two front wheels I made myself, and the two back were old ones that I repaired here. I made the whole of the body, and my daughter planed up the boards for me)—well, often when I could just get along in that, have I gone about with a large piece of decayed bone projecting through my thigh, in hopes that the jolting would force it through the wound. The pain before the bone came away was often intense, especially when it had to work its way through the thick of the muscle. Night after night have I laid awake here. I didn’t wish, of course, to distress the minds of my family any more than I could help. It would not have been fair; so I bore all with patience, and since I have been here I have got through a great deal of work in my little way. In bed, as I sit with my little bench, I do my share of eight dozen of these penny traps a-day. Last August I made a ‘thaumatrope’ for a young man that I had known since a lad of twelve years of age; he got off work and couldn’t find anything to turn his hand to, so I advised him to get up an exhibition: anything was better than starving. He had a wife and two children, and I can’t bear to see any one want, let alone the young ones; and so, cripple as I was, I set to work here in my bed and made him a large set of magic circles. I painted all the figures myself in this place, though I had never handled a brush before, and that has kept him in bread up to this time. I did it to cause him to exert himself, but now he has got a situation, and is doing middling to what he has been: there’s one thing though, a little money, with care, will go farther than a great deal without it. I shall never be able to get about as I used, for you see the knee is set stiff and the thigh-bone is arched with the hip, so that the one leg is three inches shorter than the other. The bone broke spontaneously, like a bit of rotten wood, the other day, while I was rubbing my hand down my thigh, and in growing together again it got out of straight. I am just able to stir about now with a crutch and stick. I can sometimes treat myself to a walk about the house and yard, but that is not often, and last Saturday night I did make a struggle to get out in the Bethnal Green-road, and there, as I was coming along, my stick tripped against a stone and I fell. If it hadn’t been for my crutch throwing me forward, I might have fallen on my new bone and broken it again. But as it was, the crutch threw me forward and saved me. My doctor tells me my new bone would bear a blow, but I shouldn’t like to try after all I have gone through. I shall not be about again till I get my carriage done, and that I intend to construct so as to drive it with one hand, by means of a new ratchet lever motion.”

The daughter of the toy-maker, with whom I spoke afterwards, and who was rather “good-looking,” in the literal sense of the word, than beautiful, said that she could not describe how it was that she had learnt to plane and gauge the boards. It seemed to come to her all of a sudden—quite natural-like, she told me; though, she added, it was most likely her affection for her poor father that made her take to it so quick. “I felt it deeply” she said, “to see him take to his bed, and knew that I alone could save him from the workhouse. No! I never felt tired over the work,” she continued, in answer to my questions, “because I know that it is to make him comfortable.”

I should add, that I was first taken to this man by the surgeon who attended him during his long suffering, and that gentleman not only fully corroborated all I heard from his ingenious and heroic patient, but spoke in the highest possible terms of both father and daughter.

Flies.

These winged tormentors are not, like most of our apterous enemies, calculated to excite disgust and nausea when we see or speak of them; nor do they usually steal upon us during the silent hours of repose (though the gnat or mosquito must be here excepted), but are many of them very beautiful, and boldly make their attack upon us in open day, when we are best able to defend ourselves.

The active fly, so frequently an unbidden guest at your table (Mouffet, 56), whose delicate palate selects your choicest viands, at one time extending his proboscis to the margin of a drop of wine, and then gaily flying to take a more solid repast from a pear or a peach—now gambolling with his comrades in the air, now gracefully carrying his furled wings with his taper feet—was but the other day a disgusting grub, without wings, without legs, without eyes, wallowing, well pleased, in the midst of a mass of excrement.

“The common house-fly,” says Kirby, “is with us sufficiently annoying at the close of summer, so as to have led the celebrated Italian Ugo Foscolo, when residing here, to call it one of the ‘three miseries of life.’” But we know nothing of it as a tormentor, compared with the inhabitants of southern Europe. “I met,” says Arthur Young, in his interesting Travels through France, between Pradelles and Thurytz, “mulberries and flies at the same time. By the term flies, I mean those myriads of them which form the most disagreeable circumstances of the southern climates. They are the first torments in Spain, Italy, and the olive district of France; it is not that they bite, sting, or hurt, but they buzz, teaze, and worry; your mouth, eyes, ears, and nose are full of them: they swarm on every eatable—fruit, sugar, everything is attacked by them in such myriads, that if they are not incessantly driven away by a person who has nothing else to do, to eat a meal is impossible. They are, however, caught on prepared paper, and other contrivances, with so much ease and in such quantities, that were it not for negligence they could not abound in such incredible quantities. If I farmed in these countries, I should manure four or five acres every year with dead flies. I have been much surprised that the learned Mr. Harmer should think it odd to find, by writers who treated of southern climates, that driving away flies was of importance. Had he been with me in Spain and in Languedoc in July and August, he would have been very far from thinking there was anything odd in it.”—(Young’s Travels in France, i. 298.)

It is a remarkable, and, as yet, unexplained fact, that if nets of thread or string, with meshes a full inch square, be stretched over the open windows of a room in summer or autumn, when flies are the greatest nuisance, not a single one will venture to enter from without; so that by this simple plan, a house may be kept free from these pests, while the adjoining ones which have not had nets applied to their windows will swarm with them. In order, however, that the protection should be efficient, it is necessary that the rooms to which it is applied should have the light enter by one side only; for in those which have a thorough light, the flies, strange to say, pass through the meshes without scruple.

For a fuller account of these singular facts, the reader is referred to a paper by W. Spence, in Trans. Ent. Soc. vol. i. p. 1, and also to one in the same work by the Rev. E. Stanley, late Lord Bishop of Norwich, who, having made some of the experiments suggested by Mr. Spence, found that by extending over the outside of his windows nets of a very fine pack-thread, with meshes one inch and a quarter to the square, so fine and comparatively invisible that there was no apparent diminution either of light or the distant view, he was enabled for the remainder of the summer and autumn to enjoy the fresh air with open windows, without the annoyance he had previously experienced from the intrusion of flies—often so troublesome that he was obliged on the hottest days to forego the luxury of admitting the air by even partially raising the sashes.

“But no sooner,” he observes, “had I set my nets than I was relieved from my disagreeable visitors. I could perceive and hear them hovering on the other side of my barriers; but though they now and then settled on the meshes, I do not recollect a single instance of one venturing to cross the boundary.”

“The number of house-flies,” he adds, “might be greatly lessened in large towns, if the stable-dung in which their larvæ are chiefly supposed to feed were kept in pits closed by trap-doors, so that the females could not deposit their eggs in it. At Venice, where no horses are kept, it is said there are no house-flies; a statement which I regret not having heard before being there, that I might have inquired as to its truth.”—(Kirby and Spence’s Entom. i. 102, 3.)

This short account of flies would be incomplete without a description of their mode of proceeding when they regale themselves upon a piece of loaf-sugar, and an account of the apparatus with which the Creator has furnished them in order to enable them to walk on bodies possessing smooth surfaces, and in any position.

“It is a remark[2] which will be found to hold good, both in animals and vegetables, that no important motion or feeling can take place without the presence of moisture. In man, the part of the eye which is the seat of vision is always bedewed with moisture; the skin is softened with a delicate oil; the sensitive part of the ear is filled with a liquid; but moisture is still more abundant in our organs of taste and smell than in any of the other senses. In the case of taste, moisture is supplied to our mouth and tongue from several reservoirs (glands) in their neighbourhood, whence pipes are laid and run to the mouth. The whole surface, indeed, of the mouth and tongue, as well as the other internal parts of our body, give out more or less moisture; but besides this, the mouth, as we have just mentioned, has a number of fountains expressly for its own use. The largest of these fountains lies as far off as the ear on each side, and is formed of a great number of round, soft bodies, about the size of garden-peas, from each of which a pipe goes out, and all of these uniting together, form a common channel on each side. This runs across the cheek, nearly in a line with the lap of the ear and the corner of the mouth, and enters the mouth opposite to the second or third of the double teeth (molares) by a hole, into which a hog’s bristle can be introduced. There are, besides, several other pairs of fountains, in different parts adjacent, for a similar purpose.

“We have been thus particular in our description, in order to illustrate an analogous structure in insects, for they also seem to be furnished with salivary fountains for moistening their organs of taste. One of the circumstances that first awakened our curiosity with regard to insects, was the manner in which a fly contrives to suck up through its narrow sucker (haustellum) a bit of dry lump-sugar; for the small crystals are not only unfitted to pass, from their angularity, but adhere too firmly together to be separated by any force the insect can exert. Eager to solve the difficulty, for there could be no doubt of the fly’s sucking the dry sugar, we watched its proceedings with no little attention; but it was not till we fell upon the device of placing some sugar on the outside of a window, while we looked through a magnifying-glass on the inside, that we had the satisfaction of repeatedly witnessing a fly let fall a drop of fluid upon the sugar, in order to melt it, and thereby render it fit to be sucked up; on precisely the same principle that we moisten with saliva, in the process of mastication, a mouthful of dry bread, to fit it for being swallowed—the action of the jaws, by a beautiful contrivance of Providence, preparing the moisture along the channels at the time it is most wanted. Readers who may be disposed to think the circumstance of the fly thus moistening a bit of sugar fanciful, may readily verify the fact themselves in the way we have described. At the time when we made this little experiment, we were not aware that several naturalists of high authority had actually discovered by dissection the vessels which supply the saliva in more than one species of insect.”

“In the case of their drinking fluids, like water, saliva is not wanted; and it may be remarked, when we drink cold water it actually astringes and shuts up the openings of the salivary pipes. Hence it is that drinking does not quench thirst when the saliva is rendered viscid and scanty by heat, by fatigue, or by the use of stimulant food and liquor; and sometimes a draught of cold water, by carrying off all the saliva from the mouth, and at the same time astringing the orifices of the ducts, may actually produce thirst. Ices produce this effect on many persons. It is, no doubt, in consequence of their laborious exertions, as well as of the hot nature of their acid fluids producing similar effects, that ants are so fond of water. We have seen one quaff a drop of dew almost as large as its whole body; and when we present those in our glass formicaries with water, they seem quite insatiable in drinking it.”[3]

Rennie, in his Insect Miscellanies, after describing the pedestrian contrivances with which various insects are furnished, says,[4]—“The most perfect contrivance of this kind, however, occurs in the domestic fly (Musca domestica), and its congeners, as well as in several other insects. Few can have failed to remark that flies walk with the utmost ease along the ceiling of a room, and no less so upon a perpendicular looking-glass; and though this were turned downwards, the flies would not fall off, but could maintain their position undisturbed with their backs hanging downwards. The conjectures devised by naturalists to account for this singular circumstance, previous to the ascertaining of the actual facts, are not a little amusing. ‘Some suppose,’ says the Abbé de la Pluche, ‘that when the fly marches over any polished body, on which neither its claws nor its points can fasten, it sometimes compresses her sponge and causes it to evacuate a fluid, which fixes it in such a manner as prevents its falling without diminishing the facility of its progress; but it is much more probable that the sponges correspond with the fleshy balls which accompany the claws of dogs and cats, and that they enable the fly to proceed with a softer pace, and contribute to the preservation of the claws, whose pointed extremities would soon be impaired without this prevention.’ (Spect. de la Nat. vol. i. p. 116.) ‘Its ability to walk on glass,’ says S. Shaw, ‘proceeds partly from some little ruggedness thereon, but chiefly from a tarnish, or dirty, smoky substance, adhering to the surface; so that, though the sharp points on the sponges cannot penetrate the surface of the glass, it may easily catch hold of the tarnish.’ (Nature Displ. vol. iii. p. 98, Lond. 1823.) But,” adds Rennie, “it is singular that none of these fanciers ever took the trouble to ascertain the existence of either a gluten squeezed out by the fly, or of the smoky tarnish on glass. Even the shrewd Réaumur could not give a satisfactory explanation of the circumstance.”

“The earliest correct notion on this curious subject was entertained by Derham, who, in mentioning the provision made for insects that hang on smooth surfaces, says, ‘I might here name divers flies and other insects who, besides their sharp-hooked nails, have also skinny palms to their feet, to enable them to stick to glass and other smooth bodies by means of the pressure of the atmosphere—after the manner as I have seen boys carry heavy stones with only a wet piece of leather clapped on the top of the stone.’ (Physico-Theology, vol. ii. p. 194, note b, 11th edit.) The justly-celebrated Mr. White, of Selborne, apparently without the aid of microscopical investigation, adopted Derham’s opinion, adding the interesting illustration, that in the decline of the year, when the flies crowd to windows and become sluggish and torpid, they are scarcely able to lift their legs, which seem glued to the glass, where many actually stick till they die; whereas they are, during warm weather, so brisk and alert, that they easily overcome the pressure of the atmosphere.”—(Nat. Hist. of Selborne, vol. ii. p. 274.)

“This singular mechanism, however,” continues Rennie, “is not peculiar to flies, for some animals a hundred times as large can walk upon glass by the same means.” St. Pierre mentions “a very small lizard, about a finger’s length, which climbs along the walls, and even along glass, in pursuit of flies and other insects” (Voyage to the Isle of France, p. 73); and Sir Joseph Banks noticed another lizard, named the Gecke (Lacerta Gecha, Linn.), which could walk against gravity, and which made him desirous of having the subject thoroughly investigated. On mentioning it to Sir Everard Home, he and Mr. Bauer commenced a series of researches, by which they proved incontrovertibly, that in climbing upon glass, and walking along the ceilings with the back downwards, a vacuum is produced by a particular apparatus in the feet, sufficient to cause atmospheric pressure upon their exterior surface.

“The apparatus in the feet of the fly consists of two or three membranous suckers, connected with the last joint of the foot by a narrow neck, of a funnel-shape, immediately under the base of each jaw, and movable in all directions. These suckers are convex above and hollow below, the edges being margined with minute serratures, and the hollow portion covered with down. In order to produce the vacuum and the pressure, these membranes are separated and expanded, and when the fly is about to lift its foot, it brings them together, and folds them up, as it were, between the two claws. By means of a common microscope, these interesting movements may be observed when a fly is confined in a wine-glass.” (Phil. Trans. for 1816, p. 325.)

“It must have attracted the attention of the most incurious to see, during the summer, swarms of flies crowding about the droppings of cattle, so as almost to conceal the nuisance, and presenting instead a display of their shining corslets and twinkling wings. The object of all this busy bustle is to deposit their eggs where their progeny may find abundant food; and the final cause is obviously both to remove the nuisance, and to provide abundant food for birds and other animals which prey upon flies or their larvæ.

“The same remarks apply with no less force to the ‘blow-flies,’ which deposit their eggs, and in some cases their young, upon carcases. The common house-fly (the female of which generally lays 144 eggs) belongs to the first division, the natural food of its larvæ being horse-dung; consequently, it is always most abundant in houses in the vicinity of stables, cucumber-beds, &c., to which, when its numbers become annoying, attention should be primarily directed, rather than having recourse to fly-waters.”—(Rennie’s Insect Miscellany, p. 265.)

Besides the common house-fly, and the other genera of the dipterous order of insects, there is another not unfrequent intruding visitor of the fly kind which we must not omit to mention, commonly known as the blue-bottle (Musca vomitoria, Linn.). The disgust with which these insects are generally viewed will perhaps be diminished when our readers are informed that they are destined to perform a very important part in the economy of nature. Amongst a number of the insect tribe whose office it is to remove nuisances the most disgusting to the eye, and the most offensive to the smell, the varieties of the blue-bottle fly belong to the most useful.

“When the dead carcases of animals begin to grow putrid, every one knows what dreadful miasmata exhale from them, and taint the air we breathe. But no sooner does life depart from the body of any creature—at least from any which, from its size, is likely to become a nuisance—than myriads of different sorts of insects attack it, and in various ways. First come the histers, and pierce the skin. Next follow the flesh-flies, covering it with millions of eggs, whence in a day or two proceed innumerable devourers. An idea of the despatch made by these gourmands may be gained from the combined consideration of their numbers, voracity, and rapid development. The larvæ of many flesh-flies, as Redi ascertained, will in twenty-four hours devour so much food, and gnaw so quickly, as to increase their weight two hundred-fold! In five days after being hatched they arrive at their full growth and size, which is a remarkable instance of the care of Providence in fitting them for the part they are destined to act; for if a longer time was required for their growth, their food would not be a fit aliment for them, or they would be too long in removing the nuisance it is given them to dissipate. Thus we see there was some ground for Linnæus’s assertion, under Musca vomitoria, that three of these flies will devour a dead horse as quickly as would a lion.”—(Kirby and Spence, i.)

The following extraordinary fact, given by Kirby and Spence, concerning the voracity of the larvæ of the blow-fly, or blue-bottle (Musca vomitoria), is worth while appending:—

“On Thursday, June 25th, died at Asbornby, Lincolnshire, John Page, a pauper belonging to Silk-Willoughby, under circumstances truly singular. He being of a restless disposition, and not choosing to stay in the parish workhouse, was in the habit of strolling about the neighbouring villages, subsisting on the pittance obtained from door to door. The support he usually received from the benevolent was bread and meat; and after satisfying the cravings of nature, it was his custom to deposit the surplus provision, particularly the meat, between his shirt and skin. Having a considerable portion of this provision in store, so deposited, he was taken rather unwell, and laid himself down in a field in the parish of Stredington; when, from the heat of the season at that time, the meat speedily became putrid, and was of course struck by the flies. These not only proceeded to devour the inanimate pieces of flesh, but also literally to prey upon the living substance; and when the wretched man was accidentally found by some of the inhabitants, he was so eaten by the maggots, that his death seemed inevitable. After clearing away, as well as they were able, these shocking vermin, those who found Page conveyed him to Asbornby, and a surgeon was immediately procured, who declared that his body was in such a state that dressing it must be little short of instantaneous death; and, in fact, the man did survive the operation but for a few hours. When first found, and again when examined by the surgeon, he presented a sight loathsome in the extreme. White maggots of enormous size were crawling in and upon his body, which they had most shockingly mangled, and the removal of the external ones served only to render the sight more horrid.” Kirby adds, “In passing through this parish last spring, I inquired of the mail-coachman whether he had heard this story; and he said the fact was well known.”

One species of fly infests our houses (Stomoxys calcitrans), which so nearly resembles the common house-fly (Musca domestica), that the difference is not easily detected except by an entomologist; indeed the resemblance is so close as to have led to the vulgar error that the common house-fly occasionally indulges itself by a feast upon our blood, after it has fed to satiety upon the delicacies which it picks from our tables. It is even a greater torment than the horse-fly.

“This little pest,” says Kirby, referring to the Stomoxys, “I speak feelingly, incessantly interrupts our studies and comfort in showery weather, making us even stamp like the cattle by its attacks on our legs, and if we drive it away ever so often, returning again and again to the charge.” In Canada they are infinitely worse. “I have sat down to write,” says Lambert, (who, though he calls it the house-fly, is evidently speaking of the Stomoxys), “and have been obliged to throw away my pen in consequence of their irritating bite, which has obliged me every moment to raise my hand to my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, in constant succession. When I could no longer write, I began to read, and was always obliged to keep one hand constantly on the move towards my head. Sometimes, in the course of a few minutes, I would take half-a-dozen of my tormentors from my lips, between which I caught them just as they perched.”—(Travels. &c. i. 126.)

But of all the insect-tormentors of man, none are so loudly and universally complained of as the species of the genus Culex, L., whether known by the name of gnats or mosquitos. It has been generally supposed by naturalists that the mosquitos of America belong to the Linnæan genus Culex; but Humboldt asserts that the term mosquito, signifying a little fly, is applied there to a Senicilium, Latr. (Senicilia, Meig.), and that the Culices, which are equally numerous and annoying, are called Zancudoes, which means long-legs. The former, he says, are what the French call Moustiques, and the latter Maringouins. (Personal Narrative, E. T., v. 93.)

Humboldt’s remark, however, refers only to South America. Mr. Westwood informs us that Mosquito is certainly applied to a species of Culex in the United States, the inhabitants giving the name of black-fly to a small Senicilium. Pliny, after Aristotle, distinguishes well between Hymenoptera and Diptera, when he says the former have their sting in the tail, and the latter in the mouth; and that to the one this instrument is given as the instrument of vengeance, and to the other of avidity.

But the instrument of avidity in the genus of which I am speaking is even more terrible than that of vengeance in most insects that are armed with it. It instils into its wound a poison (as appears from the consequent inflammation and tumour), the principal use of which is to render the blood more fluid and fitter for suction. This weapon, which is more complex than the sting of hymenopterous insects, consisting of five pieces besides the exterior sheath—some of which seem simply lancets, while others are barbed like the spiculæ of a bee’s sting—is at once calculated for piercing the flesh and forming a syphon adapted to imbibe the blood. There are several species of this genus whose bite is severe; but none is to be compared to the common gnat (Culex pipiens, L.), if, as has been generally affirmed, it be synonymous with the mosquito, though, in all probability, several species are confounded under both names.

In this country they are justly regarded as no trifling evil; for they follow us to all our haunts, intrude into our most secret retirements, assail us in the city and in the country, in our houses and in our fields, in the sun and in the shade; nay, they pursue us to our pillows, and keep us awake by the ceaseless hum of their rapid wings (which, according to the Baron C. de Latour, are vibrated 3000 times per minute), and their incessant endeavours to fix themselves upon our face, or some uncovered part of our body; whilst, if in spite of them we fall asleep, they awaken us by the acute pain which attends the insertion of their oral stings, attacking with most avidity the softer sex, and trying their temper by disfiguring their beauty.

In Marshland in Norfolk, the inhabitants are said to be so annoyed by the gnats, that the better sort of them, as in many hot climates, have recourse to a gauze covering for their beds, to keep them off during the night.

“Catch-’em-Alive” Sellers.

I discovered a colony of “catch-’em-alive” boys residing in Pheasant-court, Gray’s-inn-lane.

From the pleasing title given to this alley, one might almost be led to imagine it was a very delightful spot, though it is only necessary to look down the little bricken archway that marks its entrance, and see the houses—dirty as the sides of a dust-bin, and with the patched counterpanes and yellow sheets hanging from the windows—to feel assured that it is one of the most squalid of the many wretched courts that branch out from Gray’s-inn-lane.

I found the lads playing at “pitch and toss” in the middle of the paved yard. They were all willing enough to give me their statements; indeed, the only difficulty I had was in making my choice among the youths.

“Please, sir, I’ve been at it longer than him,” cried one with teeth ribbed like celery.

“Please, sir, he ain’t been out this year with the papers,” said another, who was hiding a handful of buttons behind his back.

“He’s been at shoe-blacking, sir; I’m the only reg’lar fly-boy,” shouted a third, eating a piece of bread as dirty as London snow.

A big lad with a dirty face, and hair like hemp, was the first of the “catch-’em-alive” boys who gave me his account of the trade. He was a swarthy-featured boy, with a broad nose like a negro’s, and on his temple was a big half-healed scar, which he accounted for by saying that “he had been runned over” by a cab, though, judging from the blackness of one eye, it seemed to have been the result of some street-fight. He said:—

“I’m an Irish boy, and near turned sixteen, and I’ve been silling fly-papers for between eight and nine year. I must have begun to sill them when they first come out. Another boy first tould me of them, and he’d been silling them about three weeks before me. He used to buy them of a party as lives in a back-room near Drury-lane, what buys paper and makes the catch ’em alive himself. When they first came out they used to charge sixpence a-dozen for ’em, but now they’ve got ’em to twopence ha’penny. When I first took to silling ’em, there was a tidy lot of boys at the business, but not so many as now, for all the boys seem at it. In our court alone I should think there was above twenty boys silling the things.

“At first, when there was a good time, we used to buy three or four gross together, but now we don’t do more than half a gross. As we go along the streets we call out different cries. Some of us says, ‘Fly-papers, fly-papers, ketch ’em all alive.’ Others make a kind of song of it, singing out, ‘Fly-paper, ketch ’em all alive, the nasty flies, tormenting the baby’s eyes. Who’d be fly-blow’d, by all the nasty blue-bottles, beetles, and flies?’

“People likes to buy of a boy as sings out well, ’cos it makes ’em laugh.

“I don’t think I sell so many in town as I do in the borders of the country, about Highbury, Croydon, and Brentford. I’ve got some regular customers in town about the City-prison and the Caledonian-road; and after I’ve served them and the town custom begins to fall off, then I goes to the country.

“We goes two of us together, and we takes about three gross. We keep on silling before us all the way, and we comes back the same road. Last year we sould very well in Croydon, and it was the best place for gitting a price for them; they’d give a penny a-piece for ’em there, for they didn’t know nothing about them. I went off one day at tin o’clock and didn’t come home till two in the morning. I sould eighteen dozen out in that d’rection the other day, and got rid of them before I had got half-way.

“But flies are very scarce at Croydon this year, and we haven’t done so well. There ain’t half as many flies this summer as last.

“Some people says the papers draws more flies than they ketches, and that when one gets in, there’s twenty others will come to see him.

“It’s according to the weather as the flies is about. If we have a fine day it fetches them out, but a cold day kills more than our papers.

“We sills the most papers to little cook-shops and sweetmeat-shops. We don’t sill so many at private-houses. The public-houses is pretty good customers, ’cos the beer draws the flies. I sould nine dozen at one house—a school—at Highgate, the other day. I sould ’em two for three-ha’pence. That was a good hit, but then t’other days we loses. If we can make a ha’penny each we thinks we does well.

“Those that sills their papers at three a-penny buys them at St. Giles’s, and pays only three-ha’pence a dozen for them, but they an’t half as big and good as those we pays tuppence-ha’penny a dozen for.

“Barnet is a good place for fly-papers; there’s a good lot of flies down there. There used to be a man at Barnet as made ’em, but I can’t say if he do now. There’s another at Brentford, so it ain’t much good going that way.

“In cold weather the papers keep pretty well, and will last for months with just a little warming at the fire; for they tears on opening when they are dry. You see we always carry them with the sticky sides doubled up together like a sheet of writing-paper. In hot wither, if you keep them folded up, they lasts very well; but if you opens them, they dry up. It’s easy opening them in hot weather, for they comes apart as easy as peeling a horrange.

“We generally carries the papers in a bundle on our arm, and we ties a paper as is loaded with flies round our cap, just to show the people the way to ketch ’em. We get a loaded paper given to us at a shop.

“When the papers come out first, we used to do very well with fly-papers; but now it’s hard work to make our own money for ’em. Some days we used to make six shillings a-day regular. But then we usen’t to go out every day, but take a rest at home. If we do well one day, then we might stop idle another day, resting. You see, we had to do our twenty or thirty miles silling them to get that money, and then the next day we was tired.

“The silling of papers is gradual fallen off. I could go out and sill twenty dozen wonst where I couldn’t sill one now.

“I think I does a very grand day’s work if I yearns a shilling. Perhaps some days I may lose by them. You see, if it’s a very hot day, the papers gets dusty; and beside, the stuff gets melted and oozes out; though that don’t do much harm, ’cos we gets a bit of whitening and rubs ’em over.

“Four years ago we might make ten shillings a-day at the papers, but now, taking from one end of the fly-paper sason to the other, which is about three months, I think we makes about one shilling a-day out of papers, though even that aint quite certain. I never goes out without getting rid of mine, somehow or another, but then I am obleeged to walk quick and look about me.

“When it’s a bad time for silling the papers, such as a wet, could day, then most of the fly-paper boys goes out with brushes, cleaning boots. Most of the boys is now out hopping. They goes reg’lar every year after the sason is give over for flies.

“The stuff as they puts on the paper is made out of boiled oil and turpentine and resin. It’s seldom as a fly lives more than five minutes after it gets on the paper, and then it’s as dead as a house. The blue-bottles is tougher, but they don’t last long, though they keeps on fizzing as if they was trying to make a hole in the paper. The stuff is only p’isonous for flies, though I never heard of any body as ever eat a fly-paper.”

The second lad I chose from among the group of applicants was of a middle age, and although the noisiest when among his companions, had no sooner entered the room with me, than his whole manner changed. He sat himself down, bent up like a monkey, and scarcely ever turned his eyes from me. He seemed as nervous as if in a witness-box, and kept playing with his grubby fingers till he had almost made them white.

“They calls me ‘Curley.’ I come from Ireland too. I’m about fourteen year, and have been in this line now, sir, about five year. I goes about the borders of the country. We general takes up the line about the beginning of June, that is, when we gets a good summer. When we gets a good close dull day like this, we does pretty well, but when we has first one day hot, and then another rainy and could, a’ course we don’t get on so well.

“The most I sould was one day when I went to Uxbridge, and then I sould a gross and a half. I paid half-a-crown a gross for them. I was living with mother then, and she give me the money to buy ’em, but I had to bring her back again all as I took. I al’us give her all I makes, except sixpence as I wants for my dinner, which is a kipple of pen’orth of bread and cheese and a pint of beer. I sould that gross and a half I spoke on at a ha’penny each, and I took nine shillings, so that I made five and sixpence. But then I’d to leave London at three or four o’clock in the morning, and to stop out till twelve o’clock at night. I used to live out at Hammersmith then, and come up to St. Giles’s every morning and buy the papers. I had to rise by half-past two in the morning, and I’d get back again to Hammersmith by about six o’clock. I couldn’t sill none on the road, ’cos the shops wasn’t open.

“The flies is getting bad every summer. This year they a’n’t half so good as they was last year or the year before. I’m sure I don’t know why there aint so many, but they aint so plentiful like. The best year was three year ago. I know that by the quantity as my customers bought of me, and in three days the papers was swarmed with flies.

“I’ve got regular customers, where I calls two or three times a week to ’em. If I was to walk my rounds over I could at the lowest sell from six to eight dozen at ha’penny each at wonst. If it was nice wither, like to-day, so that it wouldn’t come wet on me, I should make ten shillings a-week regular, but it depends on the wither. If I was to put my profits by, I’m sure I should find I make more than six shillings a-week, and nearer eight. But the season is only for three months at most, and then we takes to boot-cleaning. Near all the poor boys about here is fly-paper silling in the hot weather, and boot-cleaners at other times.

“Shops buys the most of us in London. In Barnet I sell sometimes as much as six or seven dozen to some of the grocers as buys to sell again, but I don’t let them have them only when I can’t get rid of ’em to t’other customers. Butchers is very fond of the papers, to catch the blue-bottles as gets in their meat, though there is a few butchers as have said to me, ‘Oh, go away, they draws the flies more than they ketches ’em.’ Clothes-shops, again, is very fond of ’em. I can’t tell why they is fond of ’em, but I suppose ’cos the flies spots the goods.

“There’s lots of boys going silling ‘ketch ’em alive oh’s’ from Golden-lane, and Whitechapel, and the Borough. There’s lots, too, comes out of Gray’s-inn-lane and St. Giles’s. Near every boy who has nothing to do goes out with fly-papers. Perhaps it aint that the flies is falled off that we don’t sill so many papers now, but because there’s so many boys at it.”

The most intelligent and the most gentle in his demeanour was a little boy, who was scarcely tall enough to look on the table at which I was writing. If his face had been washed, he would have been a pretty-looking lad; for, despite the black marks made by his knuckles during his last fit of crying, he had large expressive eyes, and his features were round and plump, as though he were accustomed to more food than his companions.

Whilst taking his statement I was interrupted by the entrance of a woman, whose fears had been aroused by the idea that I belonged to the Ragged School, and had come to look after the scholars. “It’s no good you’re coming here for him, he’s off hopping to-morrow with his mother, as has asked me to look after him, and it’s only your saxpence he’s wanting.”

It was with great difficulty that I could get rid of this lady’s company; and, indeed, so great appeared to be the fear in the court that the object of my visit was to prevent the young gentlemen from making their harvest trip into the country, that a murmuring crowd began to assemble round the house where I was, determined to oppose me by force, should I leave the premises accompanied by any of the youths.

“I’ve been longer at it than that last boy, though I’m only getting on for thirteen, and he’s older than I’m; ’cos I’m little and he’s big, getting a man. But I can sell them quite as well as he can, and sometimes better, for I can holler out just as loud, and I’ve got reg’lar places to go to. I was a very little fellow when I first went out with them, but I could sell them pretty well then, sometimes three or four dozen a-day. I’ve got one place, in a stable, where I can sell a dozen at a time to countrypeople.

“I calls out in the streets, and I goes into the shops, too, and calls out, ‘Ketch ’em alive, ketch ’em alive; ketch all the nasty black-beetles, blue-bottles, and flies; ketch ’em from teazing the baby’s eyes.’ That’s what most of us boys cries out. Some boys who is stupid only says, ‘Ketch ’em alive,’ but people don’t buy so well from them.

“Up in St. Giles’s there is a lot of fly-boys, but they’re a bad set, and will fling mud at gentlemen, and some prigs the gentlemen’s pockets. Sometimes, if I sells more than a big boy, he’ll get mad and hit me. He’ll tell me to give him a halfpenny and he won’t touch me, and that if I don’t he’ll kill me. Some of the boys takes an open fly-paper, and makes me look another way, and then they sticks the ketch ’em alive on my face. The stuff won’t come off without soap and hot water, and it goes black, and looks like mud. One day a boy had a broken fly-paper, and I was taking a drink of water, and he come behind me and slapped it up in my face. A gentleman as saw him give him a crack with a stick and me twopence. It takes your breath away, until a man comes and takes it off. It all sticked to my hair, and I couldn’t rack (comb) right for some time.

“When we are selling papers we have to walk a long way. Some boys go as far as Croydon, and all about the country; but I don’t go much further than Copenhagen-fields, and straight down that way. I don’t like going along with other boys, they take your customers away; for perhaps they’ll sell ’em at three a-penny to ’em, and spoil the customers for you. I won’t go with the big boy you saw ’cos he’s such a blackgeyard; when he’s in the country he’ll go up to a lady and say, ‘Want a fly-paper, marm?’ and if she says ‘No,’ he’ll perhaps job his head in her face—butt at her like.

“When there’s no flies, and the ketch ’em alive’s is out, then I goes tumbling. I can turn a cat’enwheel over on one hand. I’m going to-morrow to the country, harvesting and hopping—for, as we says, ‘Go out hopping, come in jumping.’ We start at three o’clock to-morrow, and we shall get about twelve o’clock at night at Dead Man’s Barn. It was left for poor people to sleep in, and a man there was buried in a corner. The man had got six farms of hops; and if his son hadn’t buried him there, he wouldn’t have had none of the riches.

“The greatest number of fly-papers I’ve sold in a day is about eight dozen. I never sells no more than that; I wish I could. People won’t buy ’em now. When I’m at it I makes, taking one day with another, about ten shilling a-week. You see, if I sold eight dozen, I’d make four shillings. I sell them at a penny each, at two for three-ha’pence, and three for twopence. When they gets stale I sells ’em at three a-penny. I always begin by asking a penny each, and perhaps they’ll say, ‘Give me two for three-ha’pence.’ I’ll say, ‘Can’t, ma’am,’ and then they pulls out a purse full of money and gives a penny.

“The police is very kind to us, and don’t interfere with us. If they sees another boy hitting us they’ll take off their belts and hit ’em. Sometimes I’ve sold a ketch ’em alive to a policeman; he’ll fold it up and put it in his pocket to take home with him. Perhaps he’s got a kid, and the flies teazes its eyes.

“Some ladies like to buy fly-cages better than ketch ’em alive’s, because sometimes when they’re putting ’em up they falls in their faces, and then they screams.”

The Fly-paper Maker.

In a small attic-room, in a house near Drury-lane, I found the “catch ’em alive” manufacturer and his family busy at their trade.

Directly I entered the house where I had been told he lodged, I knew that I had come to the right address; for the staircase smelt of turpentine as if it had been newly painted, the odour growing more and more powerful as I ascended.

The little room where the man and his family worked was as hot as an oven; for although it was in the heat of summer, still his occupation forced him to have a fire burning for the purpose of melting and keeping fluid the different ingredients he spread upon his papers.

When I opened the door of his room, I was at first puzzled to know how I should enter the apartment; for the ceiling was completely hidden by the papers which had been hung up to dry from the many strings stretched across the place, so that it resembled a washerwoman’s back-yard, with some thousands of red pocket-handkerchiefs suspended in the air. I could see the legs of the manufacturer walking about at the further end, but the other part of his body was hidden from me.

On his crying, “Come in!” I had to duck my head down, and creep under the forest of paper strips rustling above us.

The most curious characteristic of the apartment was the red colour with which everything was stained. The walls, floor, and tables were all smeared with ochre, like the pockets of a drover. The papers that were drying were as red as the pages of a gold-leaf book. This curious appearance was owing to part of the process of “catch ’em alive” making consisting in first covering the paper with coloured size, to prevent the sticky solution from soaking into it.

The room was so poorly furnished, that it was evident the trade was not a lucrative one. An old Dutch clock, with a pendulum as long as a walking-stick, was the only thing in the dwelling which was not indispensable to the calling. The chimneypiece—that test of “well-to-do” in the houses of the poorer classes—had not a single ornament upon it. The long board on which the family worked served likewise as the table for the family meals, and the food they ate had to be laid upon the red-smeared surface. There was but one chair, and that the wife occupied; and when the father or son wished to sit down, a tub of size was drawn out with its trembling contents from under the work-table, and on this they rested themselves.

“We are called in the trade,” said the father, “fly-paper makers. They used to put a nice name to the things once, and call ’em Egyptian fly-papers, but now they use merely the word ‘fly-papers,’ or ‘fly-destroyers,’ or ‘fly-catchers,’ or ‘catch ’em alive, oh.’

“I never made any calculation about flies, and how often they breeds. You see, it depends upon so many things how they’re produced: for instance, if I was to put my papers on a dung-heap, I might catch some thousands; and if I was to put a paper in an ice-well, I don’t suppose I should catch one.

“I know the flies produce some thousands each, because if you look at a paper well studded over with flies, you’ll see—that is, if you look very carefully—where each fly has blown, as we call it, there’ll be some millions on a paper, small grubs or little mites, like; for whilst struggling the fly shoots forth the blows, and eventually these blows would turn to flies.

“I have been at fly-catcher making for the last nine years. It’s almost impossible to make any calculation as to the number of papers I make during the season, and this is the season. If it’s fine weather, then flies are plentiful, and the lads who sell the papers in the streets keep me busy; but if it’s at all bad weather, then they turn their attention to blacking boots.

“It’s quite a speculation, my business is, for all depends upon the lads coming to me to buy, and there’s no certainty beyond. I every season expect that these lads who bought papers of me the last year will come back and deal with me again. First of all, these lads will come for a dozen, or a kipple of dozen, of papers; and so it goes on till perhaps they are able to sell half a gross a-day, and then from that they will, if the weather is fine, get up to ten dozen, or perhaps a gross, but seldom or never over that.

“In the very busiest and hottest time as is, I have, for about two or three weeks, made as many as thirty-six gross of papers in a week. We generally begins about the end of June or the beginning of July, and then for five or six weeks we goes on very busy; after that it dies out, and people gets tired of laying out their money.